That Which We Carry
by Kay the Cricketed
Summary: [Drabble set, post!series] Years after their first adventures in Everworld, the four of them haven't learned anything. The future is bleak, but there is always hope.
1. That Which We Carry

_That Which We Carry_

By Kay

Disclaimer: Not yet. Not anytime. Damn it all.

Author's Note: A series of gen drabbles from the future, post!series of Everworld. How have our four heroes changed in their futures?

* * *

David endures many things throughout his life.

The cold hilt of a sword that does not conform to his hand. The ridicule of that action from those he would lay his life down to protect. The weight of five people, who turn into thousands, who turn into an entire world. Unforgivable sins. Blood taken by force and in anger, which he regretted many years later in the ages of wisdom that followed youth. A war, being unable to slake his thirst and discovering what true filth felt like against his ankles. Humans and gods alike at his back, humans and gods alike before him. A duty. The role of savior. The bodies he buried when no one else would touch them. Jalil's sharp chidings in early mornings, over gray mists and cups of poorly-made tea, for him to sleep. Christopher's bitter quiet. April's fading smile.

Senna's empty grave.

And much farther ahead, a victory. A peace. Even a crown. But after all that he has carried, all he has supported and raised and hoarded fiercely in times of danger, David always remembers, even when the world is still, of that first step off of a pier and how he had been afraid to fall.

_End_


	2. Bold and Bright

_Bold and Bright_

By Kay

Author's Notes: Continued from the last, with Christopher's POV and cursed future.

* * *

Christopher finds pleasure where he can take it.

It's a lesson he learns early in life; tucked under the pipes of the sink in his parent's half-empty glass bottles, with fancy names that are just another way to label a trap he walks into willingly. Women, girls, brightly painted lipstick and a certain swish to their walk that speaks his language. And later, Etain, and oh how he'll never forget her, couldn't when he sees her every week for the rest of his life walking the stairs of a jagged castle that has become their prison. He watches her, still soft and pale and beautiful like the moon, even while his laughter grows deeper and his hair a shaggy, bold and bright mess of sunlight splayed over skin. He grows as many lines of sorrow as happiness around his mouth; they deepen with each day.

They meet on the stairs. In the stables. Over dinner. Small talk, little sips of wine, and Christopher finds all the things he wants but can't have in these agonizing spreads of time over the table. But he finds his pleasure where he can take it, in kissing the ridge of her knuckles, in smiling with secrets.

He still makes jokes. Things aren't as funny anymore, but Etain still laughs like yesterday and the day before that, and Christopher still fools himself into believing this is not another trap he has walked into willingly.

_End_


	3. In Times of Prayer

_In Times of Prayer_

By Kay

Author's Notes: This was the hardest to write, because I don't understand April well at all. I'm not even remotely Christian. But I hope the sentiment is there, at least. :)

* * *

April still prays to God every night, but sometimes it's an afterthought.

It's hard. There is no one in Everworld that believes, not a soul that can speak a psalm or the pieces of the Bible, and she had never thought to memorize it all. The stories fade a bit in her mind, until the point where she dares to go to Jalil in the early hours of the morning, voice hoarse from crying, to beg he copy what the four of the Old World children-- though not children anymore-- could remember of it.

She expected him to refuse. But Jalil's dark eyes passed over his face only once, grave, and then he nodded. They can all read the desperation, the edge, that lingers in them all.

She tries to teach some of the children in the villages they find, but these boys and girls with their ratty hair and dull eyes can't see past what is in front of them, only have a gaze for the gods they know exist because they rule over them everyday. No one cares to hear the teachings of an invisible, abandoned god.

Sometimes April wonders why she does it. Why she kneels on hard floors and prays, why she still reads from their makeshift Bible (only half the size of what she recalls, and it makes April cry), why she still preaches and still _believes_, sharp and fierce and full of the dangerous quality of hope, that this is more than a book of stories. She asks for ponies in her prayers. A good song to slip back into her memory. The rain they miss in the autumn. David's life. Christopher's love. Jalil's peace.

Most of all, April prays for her faith. In the war, in the days that follow, in David's reign and their consequent fall that it will remain strong in the face of adversity. It's funny in an unfunny sort of way that April is more pious than she'd ever been in the Old World. Now, when she holds a sword, she prays. When she goes to sleep at night, she prays. When she sees something beautiful, she prays.

April does not die for her faith. But she suffers for it, and exalts in it, and in the end she finds her strength born with each sunrise.

_End_


	4. The Long Night

_The Long Night_

By Kay

Author's Note: Jalil's turn to agonize.

* * *

Jalil bleeds for his knowledge every day.

When he came to Everworld, Jalil had wanted the rules. The software. The DNA sequence, the lifeline, the textbook definitions neatly mapping out gods and magic and the quality of sacrifice that brought them nothing. After a while, he's just happy to make it out another day alive in the war. Logic, reason, they all spill out over the ground when your guts do. Jalil's seen grown men weep and beg him for their lives; like he could return them, like he could save them. Saving people is David's job.

Most of the time, he can't even bury them. In some battlefields, the cold is too sharp and his fingers shake too much to hold a quill to write reports and battle plans and hopes, much less a shovel.

Over time, he learns things. Not always what he wanted, but sometimes it's like digging in the dwarves' mines, they hit gold when they're expecting iron. Sometimes Jalil writes books on what he learns-- long, thick parchments that no one will ever read, perhaps, save Merlin and a few curious souls in the far future-- and other times he burns any evidence. It's safer that way. He's waded through enough fields of corpses for this that he doesn't want to do so again.

As the years pass, he grows quiet and smiles few times. He is tired, a sort of disease he has yet to cure and one that David and Christopher and April all seem to be catching. The nights are long, the shadows stretch over his legs when Jalil curls up in bed, wondering whether or not his father's flagstone is still two inches off. It's the one question he can't answer and the only one that doesn't draw blood.

_End_


End file.
